Bonet, innovator in luxury bindings and among the best known of twentieth-century French art binders, executed a number of bindings for Cirque. All variants on a single decorative theme, a style Bonet called à decor rayonnant, they evoke the blaze of radiating circus lights.

The book and binding make this the most splendid livre d'artiste in the Morgan's collections, in its enormous scale, original artwork, and quality of its paper and presswork.

Rouault worked on the series of illustrations over many years. The resultant book, however, was never formally published. It is likely that most of the few surviving sets of pages of text and illustrations vary in makeup. The present copy contains a large number of proofs of the illustrations.

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The programs of The Morgan Library & Museum are made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.